WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama expressed outrage Wednesday after the U.S. Senate rejected legislation to toughen federal gun laws, dealing a bitter defeat to proponents who had invoked the Newtown school massacre to make their case.

A visibly angry Obama, flanked by Newtown, Conn., families and Vice President Joe Biden, told a White House Rose Garden news conference that “this was a pretty shameful day for Washington.”

Obama, referring to the Newtown victims, said that “the memories of these children” demand that the federal government respond to concerns about gun violence.

“Sooner or later we are going to get this right,” he said. “This is just Round 1.”

Texas lawmakers, for the most part, expressed their approval of the Senate vote to defeat the Manchin-Toomey background-check expansion amendment.

A tweet from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called the vote “a crucial victory for the Second Amendment,” saying “a pathway to a national gun registry has been defeated,” even though the amendment would have specifically outlawed a registry.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said, “The Second Amendment is not a take-it-or-leave-it proposition.”

Both Cruz and Cornyn introduced amendments of their own, which were also defeated.

Cruz's amendment, co-sponsored by Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, was an alternate omnibus gun bill that would have increased funds for gun prosecutions, given states incentives to improve the background-check database, increased funds for school safety, and made it easier for veterans and others to buy guns across state lines.

Cornyn's amendment would have allowed gun owners with concealed-carry permits from any state to travel to all states carrying their guns without prosecution.

Texas congressmen offering quick reactions to the background-checks defeat included Steve Stockman, R-Friendswood, who said it failed “because it was unconstitutional. ... exploiting grieving families and blaming nebulous conspiracies is what pushed it to doom.”

In the Rose Garden, Obama was introduced by Mark Barden, father of Daniel — one of the 26 victims of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14 — who said he and other Newtown families “are going home disappointed, but not defeated.”

Barden continued: “We are not going away. And every day, as more people are killed in this country because of gun violence, our determination grows stronger.''

Also joining the president were former Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, gravely wounded by a gunman in 2011, and representatives of four other Newtown families.

Weeks of public debate about the place of guns in American society and whether new legal restrictions were needed climaxed in a series of seven Senate votes over two hours that left nothing changed, with no new limitations or rights approved by the lawmakers.

Senate rules set a high standard of 60 votes in the 100-member Senate to adopt any of the measures, and all failed to reach that threshold.

The hallmark measure — the compromise hammered out by Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., — to expand background checks to include gun shows and Internet sales, won only 54 votes, six short of the necessary 60.

Existing law limits those checks to buyers dealing with federally licensed gun dealers.

Shouts of “shame” came from the visitors gallery as the results of the vote became clear.